Meet Planet Earth II's Badass Female Producer

Emma Napper, who produced the recently aired 'Jungles' episode, was one of the few women out in the field as the show was filmed.

As Planet Earth IIfinally airs in the United States, it’s easy to become so enraptured by its narratives of lovelorn sloths, prowling jaguars, and parading flamingos, that you forget it was ten years in the making. The highly-anticipated sequel to the award-winning nature documentary is now three episodes deep on BBC America ('Islands', 'Mountains', and 'Jungles', respectively) and David Attenborough’s ability to weave compelling storylines throughout such rare and magical footage is not only as captivating as ever, but a testament to the vast team of skilled researchers, scientists, and producers.

Emma Napper, who produced the Jungles episode, is both a member of that team and one of the few women actively out in the field as Planet Earth II was being filmed (she is quick to note that in terms of how many women actually work on the show overall, the number is high). Often away for as long as 8-10 months at a time, Napper and her crew frequently worked with the sort of harsh conditions only reserved for the world’s most remote locations. When it came to filming 'Jungles', Napper's team was met with the hot, humid and incredibly wet environment of a flooded forest in Brazil—home to all sorts of terrifying insects, as well as jaguars and river dolphins (yes, river dolphins). It was a set of circumstances that, as she points out, are tough regardless of gender. “You have to be able to handle being the only woman on location, [but] you have to be able to handle the kind of conditions that we work under, and that would be the same if you were a guy as well,” Napper tells Condé Nast Traveler. “It’s just a matter of being able to cope with maybe not being that clean, not having great food, and not necessarily having lots of drinking water.”

Photo by Emma Napper

Napper and the crew followed jaguars around the Brazilian jungle as they hunted for prey.

For the British, the voice of David Attenborough has become so ubiquitous with nature documentaries that at times it’s quite impossible to imagine one without the other. Ever since his debut with the BBC’s Zoo Quest series in 1954, Attenborough has not only set the bar for pretty much all nature documentaries, but has captured the curiosity of millions of children and adults alike. Napper was no exception: Growing up as a child in Manchester she, like so many others, avidly watched his programs on the BBC with aspirations to someday get to know a world far beyond Northern England. In her words, it was “what I always wanted to do.”

Nowadays, Napper is indisputably well-versed in almost every corner of the globe. Yet the jungle was still not without it’s challenges. “It is such a lush and beautiful environment and when you watch it on TV I hope that’s how it feels. But it rains. It rains and rains and rains,” she says. “[And] as well as the beautiful jaguars you’re filming, there’s also mosquitos, spiders, snakes, and all sorts of animals that present their own challenge.” Napper is full of tales of “cheeky rats” eating her underwear, a frog that lived in the toilet, and a shrieking parrot that resided inside the hut they stayed in, which stood on the sole piece of dry land in a section of the flooded forest. One particularly fearsome inhabitant of the area was the Brazilian Wandering Spider, a species that they came across while filming glow-in-the-dark fungi. “You should Google what it does to men, because it’s worse than what it does to women,” Napper noted. (Seriously, Google it.)

Venomous spiders aside, little will deter Napper from continuing to explore the world and tell its many stories. Now a new mother, the producer and biologist hopes that travel is something she and her daughter will soon be able to experience together. “My mum traveled a lot for her work and [traveling with children] is something that I can still do, although maybe not as much as before,” she said. “I’m excited to show my baby some of these places. As soon as she’s old enough we’ll visit where I lived for a while in Madagascar—to be able to show her that will be a huge amount of fun.”

Though acutely aware that not everybody has the luxury (or freedom) to travel wherever they want, it’s clear as Napper speaks that she believes strongly in the value of travel and its potential to educate. “[Whether it’s] the rich shores of California or a village in the middle of Madagascar, you find that the kindness and generosity of people in both locations is kind of similar, and you realize how good people can be and how welcoming, no matter their background and no matter where in the world they’re from,” Napper said. “For me, seeing incredible wildlife in beautiful locations is why I want to do this job, but maybe the unexpected benefit is just really feeling positive about how brilliant people can be across the planet.”